It's been a good weekend at Leeds Festival and I got home a few hours ago now. Damn I'm in a good mood, really cracking mood. As soon as I got home I turned up my speakers, blastest out some Kick In The Teeth by Papa Roach while dancing around like a fool in my boxers. Followed by some air guitaring to Guns n Roses. 

Following this post I'll be doing my usual day by day review of all the bands I saw but as this was my first Leeds festival I thought I'd do a bit of an overview of the whole festival. 

If you know a bit about festivals in the UK you'll know that Leeds is the sister festival to Reading. They take place on the same weekend and have the same line up but just on different days. If you don't, you now do. This year Reading had torrential rain and the Gun n Roses set was apparently an hour late, terrible and cut off during Paridise City. Haha! We in Leeds had a much better weekend. It was dry for the most part with only the occasional breif shower and Guns n Roses set was... I'll save that until the review post. 

One thing I really noticed about Leeds was it seemed like disordered order. Camping was all over the place including right next to fair ground rides. It worked fine but just seemed a little weird to me but then again I've only been the Sonisphere and Download festivals before. The toliets were pretty poor. If you're a guy and need a pee it's fine but if you're busted for the other and the arena isn't open you'd have been fresh out of luck becuase the majority of toliets were the open hole with a fixed, pee soaked, wooden seat. Not nice. I hear the girls toilets were quite nice.

There was a lot of crime in the campsites. On the second morning the people in the tents next to us had cameras and phones stolen in the night. They weren't the only ones. To add insult to the situation some other things were stolen from their group on two more seperate occasions, including one the of the girls's whole bag. The steward who came to see them the last time was saying someone had been "rinsing" the whole campsite. It's terrible. I was lucky, nothing stolen but someone had definately been in my tent (inner zip was open and I never leave it unzipped).

The stage set up was fine but there was a few issues with volume. I'll mention indiviual bands in my reviews. 

That'll do for now. The rest will come maybe today and tomorrow.

This morning I received my free iPhone 4 bumper case from Apple as part of their free case program. I'm not at all sure how they thought they could charge what they were charging before deciding to give them away. It's made up of pretty much nothing, just a little bit of shaped plastic. Anyway I put it on really just to see what it was like and if it would suit me. I don't have the antenna problem because I firstly don't hold my phone in the way you have to to cause the signal drop and also I have an invisible shield on which includes strips that go around the phone's edge.

Having had the case on all day I can say I don't like it. There are a few reasons for this:

• Doesn't feel right. The plastic is too smooth. It would be much nicer with a more rubbery texture.
• It makes the solid build quality of the iPhone 4 disappear because the bumper moves and flexes to much. 
• The shiny finish does seem to be for style but the edge of the iphone 4 is a brushed metallic look and this takes away from the look of the iPhone 4. Let's be honest the iPhone (and all Apple products) are a lot about image. The bumper just doesn't cut it with Apple normally great design.
• Doesn't fit right. I expected it to be an incredibly tight fit around the iphone but it's not. You can quite easily peal it off the iPhone and I suspect it wouldn't take much to do this is your pocket.
• Won't protect from scratches and scoffs from keys and coins.

It's not all bad. The case should give some protect if you drop it (not I'm not going to test it). It also stops the iPhone 4 sliding on smooth surfaces and that suction effect if the surface is really smooth. Finally, all the buttons are easy to use expect for the switch that turns sound on/off.

When push comes to shove I don't see myself keeping. It doesn't feel right, look good or provide protection from scratches. I'll stick with just the Invisible Shield. If you do have and use a bumper then I'd highly recommend getting an Invisible Shield.

Sunday's entertainment began, as every Sunday should be started, with the wise words of Henry Rollins. The Bohemia tent was even more packed than it had been for Corey Taylor. I saw Rollins do a spoken word show earlier in the year after trading my spare ticket for Dave Gorman with someone for their spare Rollins ticket. It was a great trade. For probably the first time ever I had sat down listening to someone for over 2 hours without my mind wondering all over the place. The reason I went to see Henry at Sonisphere was because he is one of those people who are interesting, great story tellers and most importantly speaks a hell of a lot of sense. His show was a cut down version of what I had heard earlier in the year but it was different too. Give Henry Rollins a few minutes of your time and you'll be hanging his every word.

Next up was Skindred on the main stage. The lead singer is very entertaining and the music isn't half bad. Not much else I can really say about Skindred, so I won't say any more.

After what was quite a break it was time for Pendulum. They were the band that every in our group was looking forward to the most, apart from me because that honour went to Papa Roach. I was still really looking forward to them. Pendulum are a fantastic live band that have a great position in the festival game since they can play the big metal festivals like Sonisphere and Download while also getting second stage headline set at Reading and Leeds. We made our way to the front and lead by Ruth we came to an opening. Ruth and my sister both had no idea that was where a mosh pit would be. They soon found that out. I had a couple of goes in the pit which was great fun. Having mentioned earlier that she wanted to flash for the cameras I got Ruth on my shoulders and she did what she had to, twice! You're welcome Sonisphere. Ben Mount the MC noticed the second time which was cool. Had an awesome time, even going against what I've said in the past to people about how Pendulum are at their best in small venues. The one thing I really noticed about Pendulum's set is that they didn't play Slam!!! I can see way they might have decided not to play is, probably because that's what people expect. Not playing is takes them away from being that type of one song band, which they aren't. They did play Self Vs Self with a guy form In Flames. It's Pendulum's heaviest by far and it's a TUNE!!!

Unfortunately I missed Fighstar but having seen them what must be almost 10 times now it wasn't a huge lose. Next up were Funeral For A Friend, another band I've seen quite a few times and always have high expectations about how they perform. They did exactly what I expected, nothing less than a blinding set. As happened the first time I saw Funeral For A Friend, Charlie Simpson from Fightstar come on to perform the chorus for All The Rage. A walk on like this is always good, even when clearly staged. However, what really stood out for me was a particular crowd surf. It was the first time I saw a crowd surfer in a wheelchair, pretty cool. 

As soon as Funeral For A Friend left the Iron Maiden started. Their show was great. You can definitely tell they have been doing this kind of thing for decades. For me Run To The Hills was a noticeably absent. I feel like I'm short changing Maiden now but can't seem to think of anything else to say so I'll rap it up here.

Sonisphere 2010 was such a good weekend. Better than last year and better than Download! There was something about the whole weekend, a feeling of some sorts of enjoyment I didn't get at Download. Before you say I'm totally bias (I am a bit but I'm honest) check this quote from The Guardian's website "Although only two years old, Sonisphere has elbowed Donington's Download aside to become the UK's premier metal festival". 

Sorry! I had every intention to write up my review of Sonisphere 2010 in the days after returning but unfortunately I've been feeling terrible. You know, man-flu. I feel much better now so now I have got to challenge myself to remember all the awesomeness that happened in the three glorious days of Sonis.

Friday started as you'd expect, setting up camp, making some lunch and taking a wonder to see the first bands. The first band we saw was Turisas. They are a folksy Finnish warrior type band, well that's how I'd describe them. The members of Truisas were all covered in red and black war paints. Truisas has some catchy tunes and an accordion (yes an accordion, win!) found them very enjoyable. 

We took the opportunity after Turisas to have a wonder around the arena. The Apollo and Saturn stages were pretty much in the same position of last year although the main stage had been moved further back. Most noticeable change was the Bohemia tent and fun fair. Bohemia was directly behind the second stage and the fair moved from the top of the slope to the bottom. The whole set up is great. Non what-so-ever of that trekking miles from camp to the area like at Download and other festivals and that's even for the the general camping. Another thing that works well with Sonisphere's set up is the food stalls lined between the two stages as you can just grab something while switching between the two main stages.

The the headline act was Alice Cooper who was prepared to do his full Theatre of Death stage show. I hadn't seen this before. It was full on drama production with a weird story line about (if the titled didn't give it away) death. During, Alice Cooper kills maybe people and "dies" many times himself. Cooper started and finished with Schools Out. It was a cracking and unusual way to kick off Sonisphere. 

After Alice Cooper we went back to camp for something to eat. I won't bore you here about the awesome Sonisfood I cooked, only direct you to Sonisfood where I've fully blogged it in all it's glory.